ROOMERS (Or: Why There Were Always Strangers in My House)
I grew up in Warren, Ohio.
In an old three-story wooden house at 1228 Grant Street, my Greek immigrant parents made what I can only describe as a bold financial decision:
“Let’s live with a bunch of strangers.”
Not visit.
Not host.
Live with them.
My father and I shared a bedroom upstairs. My mother and sister turned the dining room into a makeshift bedroom. And every other room in the house? Yup, rented out.
To people we barely knew.
And then we just… carried on like this was normal.
It wasn’t.
My father, from another century, let things roll off his back. He was oblivious to most things. He spent most of his time reading the Britannica Encyclopedia and eating tomatoes from the backyard garden.
My mother ran the house like a general. Efficient. Direct. No nonsense.
And in between them was this constantly shifting ecosystem of strange men coming and going. Different backgrounds. Different habits. Different problems.
We called them Roomers.
Some were fine. Quiet. Kept to themselves.
Some were questionable.
And some… you just knew weren’t going to end well.
But it was cash. And for my parents, that mattered.
So the door stayed open.
What I remember most isn’t just the people—it’s the unpredictability.
Every week, something new.
A new personality.
A new tension.
A new situation that completely disrupted whatever “normal” we were trying to hold onto.
And somehow, we adapted.
You learn quickly, as a kid, how to read a room when the room is always changing.
You learn when to stay quiet.
When to observe.
When to laugh.
Because sometimes humor is the only way to make sense of what’s happening right in front of you.
Looking back, it would be easy to call it chaos.
And it was.
But it was also something else.
It was a system.
A strange, improvised ecosystem where cultures collided, personalities clashed, and everyone—whether they admitted it or not—was trying to survive something.
That house wasn’t just where I lived.
It was where I learned how to see.
I’ve started developing ROOMERS as an animated series.
Not just because it’s a “funny idea,” but because it’s real.
It has edges.
It has unpredictability.
It has that feeling you get when you’re not entirely sure what’s about to happen next.
And that’s what makes it interesting.
We’re building it the right way.
Story first.
Characters first.
And now, combining the tactile, handcrafted feel of stop-motion with newer digital tools to expand what’s possible visually.
Because the goal isn’t just to recreate what happened—
It’s to capture how it felt.
I’ve shared pieces of ROOMERS quietly with a few people.
What’s been interesting isn’t just that they like it—it’s that they recognize it.
Not the specifics. Not Warren, Ohio. Not my family.
But the feeling.
The sense that this world, as strange as it is, could actually exist.
Or maybe already does.
If that house taught me anything, it’s this:
When you open the door, you don’t control who walks in.
And sometimes—
that’s exactly where the story begins.